The mechanics behind ambushing are really quite simple. As one of your actions you can play a card that says it can ambush (like the Native Americans card above), pay the cost to play it (1 buck), and announce an ambush. Your opponent then has three possible responses:
- They can reveal a card which is vulnerable to ambush (indicated by the Indian head shown on the regular infantry card on the right) and return it to their supply. They can buy the card back later if they have the money and want to spend and action but for the time being they lose access to that card. Any card in their hand or reserve can be hit.
- They can reveal their entire hand and reserve to prove that they don't have any ambushable cards at the moment. You don't get a refund of your card, buck, or action. They're just wasted. On the plus side you do get to know he precise contents of their hand.
- They can play a card which blocks ambushes. You'll note the Native Americans card above also says it can block ambushes. Note there is no cost to do so. They don't have to pay a dollar. They don't lose an action on their next turn. The only potential cost is they'll only have 4 cards in their hand for their next turn.
This seems like it could be pretty powerful, right? The only to fight a deck full of ambushing cards would seem to be a deck full of blocking cards? Well, not quite. It turns out there are another class of cards which help out and there are some negative side effects to the whole ambushing game.
First of all, what is the other way to fight ambushes? Priest for the French and Indian Leader for the British. The two are functionally equivalent. You play one as an action and then if your opponent has one of the green Native American cards in their hand they have to give it to you. Otherwise they have to show you their hand. Both can be useful things to have happen especially since there is no monetary cost to playing the Priest. They can also be used in raids which will be covered in the next post.
What about negative side effects? Well, they clog up your deck is the biggest problem. The British deck functions best when it can draw a full merchant action every turn which uses up 3 of its 5 card hand. The French deck earns most of its money from the trader action which is best with a full 5 card hand of optimal cards. Every ambush card you draw reduces the chance of having an optimal money action which sets you further and further behind your opponent. Especially when you consider that the ambushes rarely even get you ahead in the first place...
What do I mean by that? Well, assume an optimal British engine. They make 6 bucks with their first action each turn. Their second action is to either buy a regular infantry for 7 or to play it into the active combat. Pretend you're the French and have unlimited access to ambushing cards. You spend an action and a buck to kill off their infantry every time they buy one. It took 1.14 actions to make the money and 1 action to buy the card so they're losing 2.14 actions when you hit an ambush successfully. Assuming you're making 5 dollars per action that's only costing you 1.2 actions which is a pretty good gain. Keep this up long enough and you'll have enough spare actions to actually win the game some other way. But now give the British a single blocking card. Now it costs you 2 actions and 2 dollars to kill their infantry. That's 2.4 actions which means you're actually losing ground! There is one ambush card which is free to play so you can get that down to 2.2 but it's still not helping your cause at all. Ambushing against a properly set up engine doesn't help. You can ambush after they win a fight, though, which can help.
How do the different sides approach ambushing? Well, this is one area of the game where the French have a huge advantage. They have a blue Native American card which means that it can't be hit by the Indian Leader and that they have access to one more ambusher total. The French have access to 2 Priests compared to the 1 Indian Leader the British have. The French Militia cards actually block ambushes and raids while the British Militia are vulnerable to ambush. Beyond that they each have access to the 5 neutral Native Americans and they each have an ambusher that is free. (Rangers and Coureurs de Bois.)
Ambushing is a great way for a wise French player to abuse the mistake a British player makes but I have yet to find a way for ambushing to actually beat a top notch British plan. It can slow them down a little for sure, and I definitely need more experimentation to see if I can find a way to use that extra time to end the game as the French, but as it stands right now it doesn't seem good enough. The constant drain on gold by ambushing over and over just seems to be too much of a cost.
Ambushing does also give hand information and someone who properly tracks the contents of the opponent deck and hand will make better use of it than someone who doesn't pay attention. I keep playing against opponents who buy an Indian Leader when I don't have any neutral Native Americans, for example. Or people who ambush when I don't own a vulnerable card in my deck. Maybe they're doing it to gain the information themselves? More likely they're just making a mistake.
Hey Ziggyny! Your insight into the game seems outstanding. But actually I cannot understand your maths in this article, when you declare it not very useful to ambush vs a prepared British player as it will be getting too exspensive.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment I see no other way to hold off a top notch British player with a micro-deck w/o ambushing.
Especially if you can backtrack that ANY MILITARY CARD is in his deck coming into his hand when doing his final action in a turn, then you MUST strike.
At the moment I m exprimentating with an effective French card deck with furs as a money engine PLUS INTENDANT to grab tactical necessary cards from the discard pile along with AMBUSH & RAID. Between these countermeasures a effective balance must be found yet to breack the HALIFAX HAMMER with a combination of the BOSTON BOMBER and NASTY NATIVES.
My biggest problem is I can't find any way to stop the British at all. Ambushing can slow them down a little for sure, but it also slows you down and I haven't yet found a way to slow them down enough. I don't have a better answer though!
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